OAKLAND — For the 15th year, the city’s popular Art + Soul Festival will bring music, food and fun to downtown this weekend.

Event organizers are slightly nervous, however, that the BART shutdown of the Transbay Tube this weekend — linking the East Bay and San Francisco — could scare away wary Bay Area travelers.

But attendees coming from the East Bay have nothing to fear, festival director Samee Roberts said. BART will actually be running more trains to compensate for the shutdown, serving more potential festivalgoers seeking fun on Saturday and Sunday.

“This isn’t the weekend to go to San Francisco,” Roberts said, “but it is the weekend for people to check out the fun in Oakland.”

A pair of Oakland artists will headline the events, with Lenny Williams playing on Saturday and Sheila E., known for her work with Prince, closing the festival on Sunday.

Roberts, the city’s former longtime marketing director, said she sought out Sheila E. after the singer helped raise more than $100,000 for Elevate Oakland, a nonprofit dedicated to strengthen music programs for Oakland’s underserved schoolchildren.

Sheila E. cofounded Elevate Oakland, Roberts said, adding that it’s an honor to partner with a “top-tier local nonprofit.”

“I believe in what they’re doing, and we’re all in this quest together to make sure that music education is provided at a high caliber,” she said.

Almost all the vendors, artists, and supplies for the festival were from Oakland, she said.

That includes aerial dance troupe BANDALOOP, which will perform on the facade of City Hall on Saturday afternoon.

The weather is expected to be perfect, Roberts said, with 70-degree weather.

Roberts said she calls Art + Soul the “little festival that could.” It started 15 years ago on a shoestring budget — with just a little seed funding from the city — and has exploded into a premiere event for downtown Oakland. Now 40,000 people attend, and the festival is funded mostly by admissions.

“Everything we set out to do has come to fruition,” she said, “and we were there first.”

The festival costs $12 for adults, $7 for seniors and teens age 13 to 17, and free for kids under 12.